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\u201cWe need to\u00a0bring back ethical conduct to guide the way we live together\u201d.\u00a0These\u00a0words were spoken by\u00a0Prof. Andrew Azzopardi, the Dean of the Faculty\u00a0for\u00a0Social Wellbeing, during an interview with Voice of the Workers on the topic of poverty in Malta.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Poverty in Malta is\u00a0a reality.\u00a0 In a neo-liberal society, where people put themselves first, where everything has a price and the concepts of community and collegiality have become secondary, there is always poverty, because poverty is not simply the result of not having money but is also what happens when there is a lack of training and education.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Prof. Azzopardi\u00a0explained that the elderly are the\u00a0people within society\u00a0most affected by poverty;\u00a0children too because they depend on the adults who take care of them, as well as people who lack an education, other than primary level education, and would have dropped out of the education system and those who have a history of poverty, of criminality and other social problems that they have inherited over time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Asked what\u00a0measures or initiatives can be taken to reduce and, finally, eradicate, poverty\u00a0Prof. Azzopardi\u00a0said that we would need to decide \u201cwhether we will continue to be greedy or not\u201d. He said that if we are going to continue to be the type of society where what counts, above all else, is one\u2019s advancement, (sometimes at someone else\u2019s cost), then the problem will remain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There are a number of systems that could help mitigate poverty, such as\u00a0an increase in\u00a0pensions,\u00a0better unemployment benefits, more training schemes, improved education systems, increase in the minimum wage, better working conditions and\u00a0increased action against precarious working conditions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At the end of the day, however, said\u00a0Prof. Azzopardi, we need to heed a fundamental principle \u2013 we need to bring back ethical conduct; if we are not going to care about what we do and how we live, we will become oblivious to others\u2019 needs. \u201cNo measure will work if we do not accept responsibility for each other\u201d, said\u00a0Prof. Azzopardi.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The Dean of the Faculty for Social Wellbeing at the University of Malta said that\u00a0one needs to be careful when talking about this subject in a context of an economy that is doing well. \u201cIt is just as well saying that we have a surplus and that the economy is growing but another measure of a good economy is that it is spread across all levels of\u00a0society\u201d, said\u00a0Prof.\u00a0 Azzopardi.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He said that when we joined the European Union and\u00a0more\u00a0markets opened up,\u00a0barriers to commerce and business\u00a0came down and many price controls were removed, so we are now living in a society where what is important is money in hand and we do not care about our neighbour who may be in dire straits.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n What is the state\u2019s role? The state needs to bring back morality and ethics in all we do.\u00a0Then we\u00a0will start to understand how wealth can really be distributed.\u00a0Prof.\u00a0 Azzopardi\u00a0brought up the example of a specialist who takes\u00a0\u20ac80\u00a0for a few minutes with a child of a single mother. \u201cWhat is the ethics of that?\u201d, asked Prof. Azzopardi. He said that health specialists need to realise that they should not charge these kinds these fees to those who are vulnerable and living on the margins of society.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The economy has grown but the state has diminished and morality has been put away on a shelf because it is convenient to ignore ethics. Therefore, the state needs to create better conditions so that the public realises that no one is alone and we need one another to live with a sense of serenity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cWe need to\u00a0bring back ethical conduct to guide the way we live together\u201d.\u00a0These\u00a0words were spoken by\u00a0Prof. Andrew Azzopardi, the Dean of the Faculty\u00a0for\u00a0Social Wellbeing, during an interview with Voice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1297,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"spay_email":""},"issuem_issue":[57],"issuem_issue_categories":[9],"issuem_issue_tags":[],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"2.8.8","language":"en","enabled_languages":["mt","en"],"languages":{"mt":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/1301"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1301"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/1301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1303,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article\/1301\/revisions\/1303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue?post=1301"},{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue_categories?post=1301"},{"taxonomy":"issuem_issue_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/weekly.uhm.org.mt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issuem_issue_tags?post=1301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}